Sissy Secularism vs. Apathetic Atheism

Hello Critics!

For the first time, I am addressing my nice bunch (modest 14!) of readers as critics. There is always a reason behind such change. Why? One, "Change is Constant" and Second, "God doesn't play dice with the Universe". In no case, I be alleged of proclaiming myself as God. This is what Einstein tell. But again, Bohr jawed him by saying, "Stop telling God what to do with his dice.". So at the end, sorry for the detour, but again, Hello Readers.

Secularism is no new word for any of us. Mostly, the Indian definition of secularism actually limits us to ponder thinking ONLY about the minorities and their welfare. Had it been "Minorities" only, there would've been no problem. But unfortunately, we know what exactly is happening. There is no point in discussing about the same as here we are not one those demo-weird-cratic poly-retard-cians. As the elections of 2014 knock at the door and harder knock the knocked heads of our Indian political drama, something usual occurred in Muzaffarnagar of Uttar Pradesh. Following the proud tradition, the riots were labelled as more political than communal (there is an invisible line differentiating those two things, don't you think?!). Hullaballoo of everything and Mahalo for nothing!

Since independent India's inception (I think our independence is dream too and we are given sedatives named Superpower India!), secularism has been the root of more vices than the virtues it carries. Be it Gandhiji (meticulously, ignored and no, I don't give any importance!) or Sardar or Lal Bahadur Sastri, all of them have been infected with this virus named secularism. Let's just define the word: 

Secularism: the principle of separation of government institutions, and the persons mandated to represent the State, from religious institutions and religious dignitaries. [Source: Wikipedia]

Secularism: a doctrine that rejects religion and religious considerations [Source: Princeton Edu]

One thing that obviously catches the attention is that the both of the definitions "reject" religion in secularism. What we are facing is the loophole politics of the definition. Let's follow the Indian mutilated version of secularism.

Secularism in India: Citizens have complete freedom to follow any religion, and there is no official religion. The Government treats all religious beliefs and practices with equal respect and honor.

[Source: Wikipedia]

Wikipedia has garnered more criticism than praise for its authenticity. So, I went to download the Indian Constitution for the same. Here is something more revealing, more than just the definition.

"Subject to public order, morality and health and to the other provisions of this Part, all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion." [Source: Indian Constitution, Page 485 "Right to Freedom of Religion"]

The only part I want to emphasize is that in the right to freedom of religion, specifically mentioned is the propagation of religion which technically, legalizes all the religion conversion business. Well, does legal or illegal really matter in India? That's an LOL.

What my thought was about the way of changing the word itself. Why not be an atheist state rather than a conglomeration of colorful religion and their ever colorful conflicting doctrines. Not philosophizing, but I believe that apathy garners more impartial behaviour than love. You can love the evil blindly (e.g. Dhritrashtra) but you can be an apathetic and be more impartial (e,g, Krishna). Mythology has its own power but what is wanted is a philosophy where there is no religion in ruling the state. Religion means believing deeply in something. It maybe a human, animal, object or even an emotion (that's why we pray smileys! :P ). But atheist encapsulates none of them. It is like a crystal clear water of river, where the imperfect pebbles and the perfect stones can be separated. It is like fire which will melt everything, regardless of gold or rust iron. Love is always blind, apathy cannot be. Love has a pair of spectacles corrected by the numbers their sympathy is measured, atheism or apathy is like glasses of Leonard Hofstadter (Trivia: Leonard Hofstadter has spectacles without glasses! The Big Bang Theory Trivia).

About The Pic: Arjuna pondered deeply on Krishna's suggestions. He was mesmerized when he saw the different avatars of Vishnu. What are the chances that he would have been Krishna's blind follower if Krishna had shown this before? What are the chances that Arjuna would have been more sure about Krishna than his Dhanurvidya (skill of archery)? That's the same with monotheism and polytheism/Indian secularism. Our Constitution is mesmerized by so many religions. Maybe, it has blind faith in them more than the power of its own self.

Let's assume that for a second, India becomes an atheist nation, where the only thing that matters is the rules prescribed in its constitution. Now visualize this. A road nearby your home is broken beyond repair. Thousands of people are stranded and chaos seem to be never ending. An old man has to detour to his home in the perspiring hot summer due to that road. You cannot go to the movies because the rickshaw or the bus just can't enter. The reconstruction is currently impossible because there is a religious place situated amidst the road. Neither can they divert nor can they demolish. But if the laws are apathetic to the religion, the site will be demolished and the road will be prepared. No one can do anything. Why? The laws will dictate that neither of the religions be given importance in the work of government. Think what will happen to that noisy, blasting and irritating garba parties then. Think, what will happen to communal riots when communal word itself is purged and is a criminal offence? I think that's the utopia of India.

This is a thought that is never going to be reality, because it will defeat the entire post 1857 Indian history. It shall put the father of the nation behind the bars, will hang its first prime minister just for signing a treaty, will smother the current Indian "progress" (aka congress (a.k.a is antonym known as, for here only!)). It will slit the throat of those vociferous but hollow religious leaders who are leading the cattle of 120 crores to Hell, which they say as Heaven. But again, that's the theory of relativity!

Comments are welcome and obviously that means, at least some one is reading! ;)

Signing Off

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Science: From Overture to Symphony. Now to Finalé?

Hola Amigos,

Quite after a long time! Ideally, quite after a long space-time. But who cares to be that precise. Even with the modern knowledge, we are still going on with our weight represented in kg, whereas even a school boy knows that the unit of weight is Newton. I was recently watching A Beautiful Mind, starring Russell Crowe and playing the character of great mathematician John Nash. I was awestruck in one of the marvelous scene of this extremely pleasant movie. In one of the scenes, he and his group are observing the college girls and imagining various “games” with them in their mind. The approach is perfectly boyish. All for one (duh!). Now, there is the complexity of human brain and behavior. All the other group members are trying to woo one same gorgeous blonde and so the normal world problem of “Who goes first?” comes into existence. Born genius, all those math wizards put on their thinking cap and ponder over the problems playfully yet deterministic. But as they are mathematicians, there moves to woo are as real as their hypothetical theories. Nash is already stuck with his career hitting a dead end and is mentally somewhere else already. The atmosphere of the bar is hardly any concern to him. But just at that instance, in his subconscious, he starts to think about the problem his friends are having. They propose using a very famous the then economic model of father of economics, Adam Smith. Simplistically speaking, the model proposed that if each one of the group members played for his own interests, the whole organization will be benefited. Enter the genius, Nash. Sublimely and with his day dreaming eyes, Nash declares that Smith is wrong as his theory seems incomplete. He proposes a theory which initially radicalizes the thought process of his group for achieving their target. Then, he storms out of the bar thanking that blonde in a real genius manner i.e. looking into her eyes momentarily and with utter thinking train rumbling fast in his mind and eyes. From that little incident, he proposes a theory which technically, uproots the 150 years of backbone theory of governing dynamics of economics. Rest is history. Brilliant movie, but still a tragedy to a great extent.

I was listening to my mum, talking about her mother, my nanny. She told that even without the formal education, she was so brilliant. Though being a sub matriculate person, her common sense was par excellent. I almost hope that most of the readers will agree with this thing that their forefathers, or even their fathers and grandfathers were much “cool” in common sense and knowledge. I was listening to my mum, with great gusto. A minute later, after she left, I was immersed in my thinking. I started with our ancient Indian scientists, rolled towards Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Einstein and Hawking. Then I started to think about them more when suddenly my mum came back and asked me about the iPad and its gorgeous performance and features. I then had my “little” speech of 20 minutes starting from modern computation and retrospecting the Shockley et al inventing transistors and silicon chips and logic gates and binary. When I informed her about the working of binary system in computers, she was amazed. That watery sparkle in her eyes gave me a shudder of greatness. Of what? Greatness of how those early geniuses came up with such mind bending ideas. Who would have thought of processing information in just 1 and 0? How can someone digitize everything into 1 and 0? I, myself, was thoroughly amazed that I knew them. And I was disappointed too because I ONLY KNEW them.

Thoughts are like wild fire. They destroy and also reconstruct the entire landscape. I was flying in my own ideas and a question arose in my mind. Are we advancing or retreating in science? In music, there is a prelude or an overture that slowly starts any piece of music to thrill the audience. Subsequently, starts the main piece or the symphony which spellbinds them. And then, the finale, an obvious ending of a masterpiece. I started comparing music and science, as both of them have a huge impact on thinking humans (HR fans, bitch please!). Science started with genuine curiosity of ancient humans. Some of them assumed what they thought and kept on hauling that idea as the reason. Some over smart tried to get some basis. Experimenting, checking the authenticity. And when the notion fell apart, they began to re-search about the probable explanations. This is how science ever came into existence. Mild curiosity was transformed into strong emotions to know. Ironically, also to let down the theories proposed by the enemies. But of all that, we got was the science of everything. Religion is also a science of living a life with utmost humility and intelligence, all rolled into one. I marveled and relished the yesteryear inventions and was getting chills of nostalgia.

The pre Newton era was actually the most controversial phase of humans in science. Zillions of theories put forward. Millions discarded. They injected God element to ignore the unexplainable phenomena. Then come the rationale like Copernicus, Galileo and Newton, who changed the way the human race, would ever think. Newton never had a calculator. Neither had he had access to super fine resolution telescopes nor did he have any electronic devices to help him out nor did he have internet access to various forums and ask “Why did that apple fall down and not go up?” Let me rephrase it, can we do the same? Things, right now, are so simple. You have a doubt, you search on the Internet, ask on various forums, have an easy access to various libraries, Skype and what not. Just imagine, how would have Newton formulated his laws without super sensitive sensors. Without Mathematica or without any references available from Google or Wikipedia. Furthermore, he never had any scientist buddies on Facebook or a group there, who would verify his papers, theories and suggest him solutions! Neither was there any group on Facebook during Galileo’s time that would protest against the church or sign an online petition to save Galileo’s work from being burnt! The overture of Science was just getting better, bigger and thrilling.

The symphony began between late 18^th and early 19^th century, when brilliant minds like Bohr, Rutherford, Einstein, Planck and almost incredibly brilliant minds were born and came into action. It maybe the Industrial Revolution that is being considered that has redefined us but I strictly believe that this whole lot of scientists were the backbone of what we say, the modern science. Those who are even a little bit familiar with quantum mechanics would know how hard it to visualize is. It is just stupendous to think so much out of the box. Dual nature of light, photons, orbitals, existence from zero, black holes, quarks, gluons, leptons…Oh! I am exhausted. Most of the theories were tested in an unsophisticated environment, without computers and circuits. Relativity! One word and we bow down with respect and thorough amazement. (People always argue about relativity’s real life utility. I say, “Just give it a little space-time! ;)”). The explosion created by Einstein stirred the entire world just like the by-product of his theories, the atomic bomb. Newtonian Universe was in a head on collision with Einsteinian Cosmos. Ramanujam was almost a poor man with richest brain, which boggled the minds of high profile mathematicians like Hardy. Chandrasekhar proposed an elegant theory of Chandrasekhar limit which the arrogant Eddington refused to believe till eternity. Von Brown created rockets. Destructive at first, that maverick invention is reason you can read this blog at home without suffering the pain to see me in person! So on and so forth, clashes of human intelligence and actual smartness led to some of brilliant fireworks of brains. Ford introduced the concept of assembly line which is the foundation of current industries and production. People enjoyed, the world progressed.  They were all INVENTION.

Coming in the early 20^th century or the 90s, the humanistic progress was throttled with the groundbreaking discovery of computers. The telephones, cellphones and all those amazing devices came into existence due to Shockley et al gigantic invention of transistors in the mid-20th century. Nerve bending computational speed and complex data calculation and accumulation changed the way we used to see the world and vice-versa. Music was revolutionized. Movie making was revolutionized. Everything was revolutionized. It was INNOVATION.

Nothing to prove and nothing to grieve, but this is the thing I am concerned about. The human life and its progress started with meager curiosity. We landed on invention and now it is in the phase of innovation. Thing is, invention is a phase where something maverick comes out. To summarize, invention is like the Big Bang moment. It may not be having any strong factor or base, nothing at all in the time before. Right now, people are obsessed with the word innovating and creativity. They throw those words relentlessly and freely. Yes they are important. Innovation is very important. Modification, ramification, changing the perspective, yes, is important. But, have we invented everything? Is everything already invented that we need to just modify them now? I highly doubt that. Current concern is this thing. Apple and Samsung are two giants whose locking horns are giving the geeks orgasms of electronics. What I have observed, that nowadays, the only thing that is coming out is the apps. The high end graphics, the superb touch, this many GHz, that many cores and CUDA and teraflops and petaflops but no ground breaking invention like transistor. No path breaking theories like gravity. No unnervingly brilliant ideas like quantum. We are just flowing with the flow of river or to be frank, like a flock of sheep. The only difference is that some of the sheep are thinking a little different. We have encased our thinking to the limited theories that we know. To the limited devices we can improvise. But can we have a device, just as astounding as computer, now? Unfortunately, even innovation is being subdued by resurfacing of creativity. And creativity is dryly apprehended as designing a little better with totally a consumer utility based logic. Seems that consumerism is the main culprit here. Moreover, we are losing the magnitude of intelligence too. With reference to my mother's inputs about my nanny's times, people had a greater common sense and practical knowledge. Of course, they weren't all that geeky smart but the overall intelligence and reasoning of the mass was stronger. Right now, the intelligence of a handful of mass is staggering. You can't compete with them but the common man is really turning into a stupid common man. Their mind has been purged from the quintessential common sense. I always ask my mum in a sarcastic but genuine worry tone about who is going to follow the legacy of cooking now. Their delicious hand made cooking is also becoming extinct, as a greater mass of fairer sex is getting involved with job. I have the same worry about invention. Legacy lost? God, hope not!

Nash didn't overthrow Smith’s theory for money. Einstein didn't oppose Newtonian mechanics for any monetary gains. Chandrasekhar didn't argue with world class physicist Eddington to achieve any financial appreciation. Ramanujam died poor. All these examples point us out that in the race of earning money; we have devolved from inventors to innovators. Furthermore, innovators will be converted to mere formula restricted designers. All of the things that changed our entire human race’s thinking were not just to encash money but were the fruits of original and myriad brainy thinking. Tesla is nowadays considered to be one of the greatest innovators. But his genius was more in the arena of inventor rather than innovator.

Anyway, the world is moving fast. Hoping for a better future of science and better definition of invention.

Must see: Apple's WWDC XIII keynote. Something for the readers to get spellbound beyond words. Enjoy!

Signing off

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